The currently unnamed eight-team league
will launch in the spring
, U.S. Soccer announced Wednesday. The clubs will be located in Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, New Jersey, Portland, Seattle, western New York and Washington.

The sport has
repeatedly shown it can draw large numbers of fans in the stands and on TV
for the World Cup and Olympics, but women's soccer
has yet to find a foothold as a pro sport in the U.S.

WUSA folded in 2003
after three seasons,
failing to capitalize on the success
of the
1999 World Cup
. More recently, Women's Professional Soccer folded this year, also after three seasons.

With a vested interest in
ensuring national team players have somewhere to play in the years leading up to the 2015 World Cup
, U.S. Soccer is stepping in this time
to seek to create a viable economic model
. The teams will still be privately owned, but the
federation will pay for the salaries of 24 national team players
.

U.S. Soccer also will fund the league's front offices.

"We are subsidizing the private sector here to try to make it sustainable, to try to make the investments necessary by the private sector smaller," U.S. Soccer President
Sunil Gulati
said on a conference call.

The Canadian and Mexican federations
also will pay the salaries of some of their players
, with the same goal of ensuring their national teams are well-prepared for the World Cup. That means each club won't have to spend on salaries for up to seven players.

"We won't start off with the sort of deficits that we started the last two leagues with," Boston Breakers managing partner
Michael Stoller
.

The league will try to save money compared with the WPS in other ways, as well. Gulati said teams
might sign fewer elite international players
.
Clubs will play in smaller stadiums
to lower operating costs and do less marketing.

"What we need is a sustainable model: less hype, better performance," Gulati said. "The hype will come if we have the performance."

U.S. Soccer could have held a residency program for its national team players, as it has done at times in the past. Gulati said new coach
Tom Sermanni
and other officials believe the best way for players to improve is by competing in a league.

The federation's involvement will also allow it to make sure the
league's schedule doesn't conflict with national team activities
.

U.S. Soccer has a
handshake agreement with one national sponsor
and is
looking into a potential television deal
, Gulati said. He expected some players would essentially be semi-pro, joining a team while working part-time or going to grad school, saving the squads more money on salary.

But with
star power guaranteed
from players on the Olympic gold medalist U.S. team, Stoller insisted: "This is a true professional league and standard of play."

"The one thing that has absolutely not changed is the teams' commitment to professional training and professional environment for the players," he said.

To read
Cuauhtemoc Blanco's
take on the Liguilla semifinals,
click here
.